“ It was said that in order to be unimpeded in war, they burned off their right breasts; but no work of art shows them thus mutilated, and undoubtedly the story is merely an invention to explain a false etymology, as though the composition of the word Amazon were ἀ priv. ”

“ The origin of these legends is not clear; but if we consider the localities in which the Amazons lived, and that in historic times the Greeks found tribes about the Black Sea in which the women held sway and took part in war, while in Caria, Lycia, and Lydia there is much evidence for descent traced through the mother, it seems not improbable that the Amazons embody a reminiscence of the people and civilization which preceded the Greeks on the east of the Ægean. Representations of the Amazons are very common in all periods of Greek art. ”